China's Ministry of Railways said it plans to launch a new service for passengers to book and pay for train tickets via smartphones running either Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

Xinhua reported Wednesday a trial period had been scheduled to allow passengers in Shanghai to make ticket reservations on certain dates during a eight-day pilot starting Sep. 30, which encompasses the Mid-Autumn Festival and Chinese National Day week-long holiday.

The ministry estimated 75.4 million train trips will be taken between Sep. 27 and Oct. 7 this year, averaging 6.86 million trips per day.

The smartphone service was built to prevent system failures if a huge number of users log on to the ministry's online ticketing platform, it added. During the Spring Festival--also known as the Chinese New Year--in January, the online ticketing system crashed due to overwhelming demand, angering thousands of users in China.

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